Landmine blast kills two soldiers

QUETTA—A landmine blast ripped through a vehicle carrying soldiers Friday, killing two of them and wounding another in restive southwestern Baluchistan province, an official said.
The paramilitaries, said to be involved in mine-clearing operations in the region, were driving to the town of Dera Bugti when their vehicle hit the mine planted on the road, a local security official said.
The official said the mine was planted by tribal rebels.
Baluchistan, which borders both Iran and Afghanistan, has been in the grip of a three-year rebellion waged by ethnic Baluch rebels seeking more political rights and a greater share of profits from the region’s natural resources.
There has been an upsurge in violence in recent weeks in the resource-rich province, with targeted killings of police and security officials, many claimed by the banned Baluch Liberation Movement (BLA). A policeman was shot and killed in the provincial capital Quetta when he was returning home in a van late Thursday. The BLA immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in telephone calls to media outlets.
Hundreds of people have died in violence in the province since the insurgency flared in late 2004. Rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, whose base was in Dera Bugti, was killed by the army in August 2006.—Agencies